Rest in power

In mainly black and LGBT communities[1] in the United States, rest in power (a variation on rest in peace) is an expression used to mourn, remember or celebrate a deceased person, especially someone who is thought to have struggled against systemic prejudice such as racism, homophobia or transphobia, or suffered because of it. It has been used to eulogise victims of hate crimes while protesting the social inequality and institutionalised discrimination that may have led to their deaths. "Rest in power" is also used to pay tribute to a public figure who made a difference in the lives of minority communities and was significant and respected within them.[1]

As an alternative to the traditional Christian phrase "rest in peace", "rest in power" suggests that even in death the deceased person has the power to make a difference to others. The phrase is a statement of solidarity and a call to continue the struggle for social justice, as the deceased person will not be able to 'rest in peace' until society itself changes. However, it also implies the hope that the deceased person can now rest, free from oppression.

History

Etymologist Barry Popik has traced the earliest use of the phrase to a newsgroup post on February 18, 2000 which paid tribute to Oakland, California graffiti artist Mike 'Dream' Francisco, who had been shot and killed during an armed robbery. Dream's graffiti art was political in tone, and his pieces often critiqued the United States government's treatment of poor and marginalized people.[2] The post to alt.graffiti, by a contributor identified only as "SPANK", ended with the words "REST IN POWER PLAYA".[3]

By the mid-2000s, the phrase began to appear in print, again linked to young people's premature, violent deaths. In a 2005 opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, Meredith Maran reflected on 19-year-old Meleia Willis-Starbuck, a Dartmouth College scholarship student who was home in Berkeley for the summer when she was shot and killed by an unknown assailant outside her apartment. Writing of the makeshift public altar set up to mourn Willis-Starbuck, Maran wrote, "I've never seen 'Rest in Power' written as a substitute for 'Rest in Peace.'"[4]

A September 29, 2005 article in the Ottawa Citizen, a Canadian newspaper, described a public graffiti memorial for teenage Ottawa murder victim Jennifer Teague that portrayed "a smiling Ms. Teague beneath the words, 'Rest in power'" and framed by "two black angels."[5]

"Rest in power" circulated on Twitter in the late 2000s and early 2010s in tributes to recently deceased people of color such as musicians Eartha Kitt[6] and Prince.[7]

Protesting transphobia

After the 2014 suicide of Leelah Alcorn, "Rest in power" circulated widely on Twitter posts about Alcorn, both as a phrase[8][9][10] and a viral image meme and hashtag.[11][12][13]

"Rest in power" has since become widely used when mourning the premature deaths of trans people,[14][15] and is a rallying cry on the Transgender Day of Remembrance,[16] observed each year on November 20.[17]

Black Lives Matter

The parents of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old African-American boy who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman in 2012, wrote a 2017 nonfiction book titled Rest in Power about their son's life and legacy. In 2018 the book was adapted into a six-part television documentary series titled Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story.

But it was the deaths of two more African-Americans in the summer of 2014 – Michael Brown, who was shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner, who was choked to death by police in New York City – that galvanised the broader visibility of "Rest in power", along with other phrases that had previously circulated in vernacular usage in minority communities and among activists, such as "Black lives matter" and "stay woke".[18][19]

In this context, "Rest in power" refers to any unjust deaths, past and present, due to systemic racist violence – including those who died in earlier civil-rights struggles and lynchings, such as Emmett Till.[20][21] In the song 'Rest in Power', the official theme for the 2018 documentary series of the same name, Black Thought raps: "To them it's real, sins of the father remembered still / For every Trayvon Martin, there was an Emmett Till".[22]

Wider usage and criticism

Much as other words and phrases first seen in activist social media have become used more broadly, and their specific meanings diluted, "rest in power" is now used to mark the deaths of any respected public figures who leave strong legacies, even if they are not known for their political activism. Slate writer Rachelle Hampton refers to "that familiar wash-rinse-repeat cycle wherein phrases once associated with black and queer communities enter the mainstream. And as usual, at the end of this co-opting churn, little of the language's history remains."[3]

"Rest in power" is also used to honour people who did not necessarily die violently or prematurely. As US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar observed of pioneering NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, who died in February 2020 aged 101, "If Katherine Johnson had let racial and gender barriers stop her, we may have never made it to the moon. She lived in power. May she now rest in power."[23]

However, the phrase cannot be used interchangeably with "rest in peace". It still reflects a history in which social and political power is asymmetrically distributed and hard-won. When the Women's March feminist organisation tweeted "Rest in peace and power, Barbara Bush"[24] to mark the 2018 death of the conservative political matriarch, Twitter users criticised the organisation harshly for abandoning its radical beginnings,[25][26] while others pointed out that in honouring a white woman who benefited from systemic power her entire life, the Women's March organisation was betraying its own lack of interest in fighting for non-white women.[27][28]

Sohrab Ahmari, a conservative religious commentator,[29] criticises the phrase's usage in the magazine Commentary: "As if the peddlers of identity politics hadn't done enough to poison Western culture in the here and now, they have now set their sights on the afterlife." For Ahmari, the expression attempts to extend the terrain of social justice "beyond the grave" and hence is "a reminder that liberal identity politics is a quasi-religious or quasi-spiritual movement. On Earth, it makes radical claims for group justice, even as it denies any universal standard of justice. In the realm beyond death, it restages the same old campus and Twitter battles against structures of oppression. Even in the afterlife, we are supposed to check our privileges, unpack our biases, and problematize and dismantle hierarchies. Even the afterlife is the battlefield of race against race, sex against sex, trans against cis, and so on."[30]

See also

References
  1. "What does rest in power mean?". Dictionary.com. Archived from the original on March 30, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  2. Taylor, Tara (May 1, 2014). "Remembering Dream Francisco". Alameda Magazine. Archived from the original on May 7, 2018. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  3. Hampton, Rachelle (September 30, 2019). "How "Rest in Power" Went From Radical Eulogy to Kitschy Twitter Meme". Slate. Archived from the original on March 1, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  4. Maran, Meredith (July 21, 2005). "Gun Violence Tragedy in Berkeley / Meleia, in memoriam". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  5. Popik, Barry (May 31, 2019). "Rest in Power (RIP)". BarryPopik.com. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  6. Taneane (December 26, 2008). "Rest in POWER - Eartha Kitt". Twitter. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  7. Pope, Brandon (April 22, 2019). "Three years since we lost a legend. Rest in power, Prince". Twitter. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  8. Bach, Jordan (31 December 2014). "Rest in POWER, Leelah Alcorn. You join a legion of angels whose whispers encourage & embolden LGBT people everywhere". Twitter. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  9. Lesbian Agenda (31 December 2014). "rest in power, leelah alcorn". Twitter. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  10. Original Plumbing (31 December 2014). "Rest in Power Leelah Alcorn". Twitter. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  11. Kaushik, Shubham (2 March 2015). "Rest in Power: The Leelah Alcorn Story". DU Beat. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  12. Tobia, Jacob (7 January 2015). "We paint our fingernails pink in honor of Leelah Alcorn. You are not alone. You are loved #PinkForLeelah #RestInPower". Twitter. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  13. Los Angeles LGBT Center (26 November 2015). "Ohio Highway Memorializes #Transgender Teen, Leelah Alcorn". Twitter. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  14. Sosin, Kate (10 June 2019). "Murders of black transgender women in Dallas raise fears in LGBTQ community". NBC News. Retrieved 3 April 2020. Blogger Monica Roberts writes a variation of the same headline over and over again. 'Number 3- Rest in Power and Peace Muhlaysia Booker.'
  15. "Stop Trans Murders". National LGBTQ Task Force. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  16. McGranachan, Emily. "November 20th Is Transgender Day of Remembrance". Amnesty International US. Retrieved 3 April 2020. As trans rights activist and writer Joanna Cifredo told Amnesty activists at our Mid-Atlantic Conference in November 2014, 'One voice shouting doesn't make a whole lot of noise. But a whole group shouting makes a difference.' Join us; raise your voice! Rest in power.
  17. Ennis, Dawn (November 20, 2019). "The Transgender Day of Remembrance: So Much Loss, So Much to Keep Fighting For". Daily Beast. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  18. Hampton, Rachelle (30 September 2019). "How "Rest in Power" Went From Radical Eulogy to Kitschy Twitter Meme". Slate. Retrieved 3 April 2020. What is indisputable at this point is that the nationwide unrest that exploded in the aftermath of the six hours that Brown's body lay on the hot Missouri pavement catapulted phrases like black lives matter, rest in power, and stay woke to a national stage.
  19. "What does woke mean?". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 3 April 2020. Especially under the hashtag '#staywoke' on social media, woke took off in 2014 with the Black Lives Matter movement, ignited by the tragic shooting of two other young, unarmed black men by police officers. Among activists, woke and stay woke were cries not just to be aware of racial injustice, but to organize and mobilize to do something about it.
  20. Southern Poverty Law Center (29 August 2018). "Rest in power, Emmett Till. #TheMarchContinues". Twitter. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  21. Boykin, Keith (October 21, 2019). "It's a shame that we have to erect bulletproof memorials to the victims and martyrs of white racist violence in America. Rest In Power Emmett Till". Twitter. Archived from the original on October 21, 2019. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  22. Madden, Sidney (24 July 2018). "Black Thought Pays Tribute To Trayvon Martin And Calls For Change". NPR. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  23. Omar, Ilhan (February 25, 2020). "If Katherine Johnson had let racial and gender barriers stop her, we may have never made it to the moon. She lived in power. May she now rest in power". Twitter. Archived from the original on February 24, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  24. Women's March (April 18, 2018). "Rest in peace and power, Barbara Bush". Twitter. Archived from the original on January 27, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  25. Norton, Ben (18 April 2018). "This whitewashed nonsense is what happens when you let your movement be taken over by corporate foundations, the Democratic Party, and neoliberals who make the name of a protest a brand and then attack activists who organize other protests with that name". Twitter. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  26. Sawant, Kshama (19 April 2018). "This is terrible. @womensmarch organizers have helped lead historic protests since Trump's election but this tweet shows how, without a political compass, even well-meaning progressives can end up giving cover to ruling class & ultimately undermining struggles against oppression". Twitter. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  27. BASKO (19 April 2018). "lmaooo what did barbara bush ever do for people of color?? y'all act like your movement is inclusive but we see thru ur white guilt". Twitter. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  28. Clemente, Rosa A. (18 April 2018). "This is so so disappointing. The things she and her family have down to global Black people is criminal, to say the least. She is part of the system of white supremacy, anti Black, anti feminist, as Malcolm said "who taught you to hate yourself?"". Twitter. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  29. "Against David French-ism | Sohrab Ahmari". First Things. Retrieved 2020-07-09.
  30. Ahmari, Sohrab (18 April 2018). "Identity Politics in the Hereafter". Commentary. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
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